A Camera's Company
by JanieNine
Summary: Years after Harry Potter defeated Voldemort, a young, muggle-born girl discovers a camera outside her front door. The film that accompanies it astounds her. Pictures of a young boy with a brilliant lightning scar, and another of friends walking along the grounds of a magnificent castle. Back by London, a young milkman hopes his brother's camera has been put to good use.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note 3/20/13: Hello reader. You might be wondering, "Why did Janie stop her last project for this old thing?" Well, I got inspired by something other than my last multichapter fiction and while that one is still up, I thought I should pursue the inspiration while it struck. This story is more an interesting exploration than anything. It started with a character, and progressed from that. I actually didn't intend to have Dennis Creevey or a camera in this story at all when I first thought of ideas. I simply needed filler description to flesh out the story, and thus the actual plot was born. And please review this story. I understand that you might not have the time, or that you might be disgusted with me, or that you have other things to do. If any of those are applicable, I totally understand why you're not reviewing, but I implore you to do so anyway. You see, I thrive off your critique, even if it's completely negative. You hate my story? Great! Tell me! It's better than feeling nothing. I want to bring out emotions in you like the Harry Potter books have brought out in me. I thought I would mention here and now that I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I claim to own the story, its characters, its plot devices, or any of that. I do claim to own Lillian Askett as a character completely of my own design, and I do claim to own the specific plot of this story. In fact, I'm not just claiming that; I'm saying it. I own those. No idea-nomming por favor! I also want to address the rating of this story: it is T simply because I want the freedom to add in T related themes. I don't expect it to go above a K or K+ for most things, and certainly not for language or sexual content. The only thing that might reach T is violence, and that's simply because I describe battle scenes in agonizing detail. So, onto the story!**

A few miles from London lay a peaceful suburb, surrounded by many other peaceful suburbs. A milkman bicycled by the rows of brick houses to deliver his day's worth. The money was far from good, but it paid a portion of his bills. The man's position as an ice-cream truck driver supplied the rest. His family certainly appreciated dairy; they came from a long line of dairy farmers and milkmen, and while they had never been rich, they were all proud to serve England in their own, calcium filled way. The humid air swam down the man's throat as he pedaled on his milkman's bicycle. He reached up one tentative hand, swerved a bit, then placed it back onto the handlebars. The milkman tried anew, and succeeded in lowering his hat to block the early September sun. At this time of year it rose before the man began his shift and sat far after it came to a close. The children clambered for ice cream late into the night, and he was happy to serve. After all, it wouldn't be long before he put away his ice creamer's uniform for the season. The man watched pairs of parents drag their children into automobiles to go to school. It had started recently; he remembered seeing the toddlers clinging to their mothers' legs as they teetered to their cars. He saw the wave of new backpacks, and he remembered the smell of fresh notebook paper and graphite for pencils. He especially remembered the "First Day ice cream" parties parents held for their children. These were never anything special, but the smiles on young faces after a first day at school warmed his heart. He hated to close his truck those days, he dreaded the time his clock would fluoresce 9:00. He would pull out, return home, and go to sleep with the knowledge that he would have to wait another year for those Christmas-esque smiles.

The Askett residence broke him out of his reverie, and he stopped his bike near their front hedge. He couldn't see any morning activity in their house, which was odd for a school morning. He glanced down at his watch: 7:30. Their car sat still in the driveway with the trunk open. A large suitcase sat in the open trunk, and on top of that sat a cage with a small, sleeping, something. The black ball of fluff rose and fell in its cage, and the milkman couldn't help but feel sorry for the little thing. Hopefully it wouldn't be held captive for very long. As he continued to gaze at what he assumed to be a cat, it woke and gazed back at him. Their locked stare turned very creepy very quickly, the milkman thought. The cat's green eyes seemed far too intelligent to belong to a feline. "What if that's actually a human being?" he asked himself, then shook his head. He hadn't held such thoughts for a long time.

As the milkman pedaled on, he remembered that none of the Askett kids walked to school that morning. Were they in secondary school already? Where would they be going? He would have seen the pair of them walking to the local secondary school if they were attending. He wondered whether the small, specky one left for boarding school; the child sounded like he had the brains for it, from the snippets of conversation they'd shared around his beaten ice-cream truck. The girl would surely be attending the local public school. Everyone said odd things happened around her, but they surely couldn't be so odd as to prevent her from attending school. He hoped she hadn't finally hurt herself with one of those weird stunts; he remembered the time his hair turned orange from the time he ran out of dulce de leche ice cream. The milkman pursed his lips. "She might be a good candidate for it," the man mused as his knees pumped an infinite circle of tire on blacktop. He would have brought a hand to rub his newly-shaven chin, but he didn't trust his balance with such a feat. Instead, he let his head do the wondering. Hopefully it could figure things out without the assistance of his right hand.

"Well, she's the best candidate for it you've seen in ten years. You might as well drop it off. If not she's not the right one, you still made a kid happy." The milkman sighed and turned his bike around. He would be flayed for his late delivery, but the boss couldn't mind too much; he hadn't been late in years. He deserved one day of "slacking." He carried the package with him every day in a small bag slung over his shoulder, just in case he found the child on the street. The parcel was no larger than the boxes holding milk bottles, but infinitely more valuable to him. Of course, the box's purpose was to be given to the right child, and the milkman said his goodbyes to it long ago.

He needed to sneak by the house, pretend he was checking his list, perhaps. The Asketts didn't receive milk on Sundays, but he was old enough to make a few mistakes. So long as they didn't notice him dropping what promised to be a suspicious-looking package, he would be fine. He parked the bicycle behind a bush and walked in front of the house, carrying the list as he went. The man made for the door with a bottle of milk in his left hand, making it look like his appearance was an honest mistake. He appeared to check his list once more, and left the door. No one noticed the box he left on their front stoop. He left no instructions, no return address, and no sign of who should receive the package. If this girl was the right child, the package would find her.

The milkman pedaled more swiftly up the road now, lightened by his empty sack and empty heart. He hadn't felt this free in nineteen years.

* * *

Mrs. Askett huffed as she lowered the menacing torture weapon to her daughter's head for a third lashing. The air outside, very humid, made this the optimal day for torture, though the worst possible day for useable results. She could smell cooling cinnamon rolls on the side counter, and she could sense the young girl's mouth filling with saliva. Perhaps she'd let the girl have a treat after enduring what this one-hundred pronged object had in store for her.

"Mom! Mom! Cut it out!" Lillian nearly growled as the brush ripped through her hair. "I swear it looks fine!"

"I don't know how those wizarding families let their children walk around, but in this house we have brushed hair." Mrs. Askett rolled her eyes and tried to remember that it was perfectly normal for her daughter to leave home and be trained as a witch. She simply couldn't see it; Lillian looked nothing like a witch. Mrs. Askett's first thought had been, "So where are the frog spawn and warts?" but she had dispelled the thought quickly. If her daughter were to become a witch, Mrs. Askett was determined to see her become a decent-looking one. Granted, Lillian had always seemed a little odd, but Mrs. Askett simply assumed Lillian had good luck. She grimaced as she remembered the day she found out luck had nothing to do with her daughter's good fortune.

_An errant January wind blew its way through the house. Someone left a window open on the second floor, and the draft wrapped its way around the stair banister, the doorknobs, and every chair in the house. A young boy with glasses as big as his face shivered at his seat by the fire. He flipped a page of the tome propped on the arm of his chair. He loved the smell of old pages, even more than the smell of drying ink or a newspaper hot off the presses. This smell told the boy a story of the book's history, not just the words contained within the book. Today he poured over Shakespeare, again. He couldn't count how many times he read the tragic death of Macbeth or the comedic death of Pyramus. He watched lovers in their prime, enemies at their worst, and humanity at its finest. Shakespeare played God well, the boy thought as he flipped yet another fragile page._

_A clanging ring reverberated through the house. "Lillian? Can you get the door? I'm busy!" shouted Mrs. Askett._

"_I'll get it," said the bespectacled boy, alighting from his chair by the fire and coming to the door. He usually fumbled with the lock, but it turned easily under his fingertips this time. He could barely blink in surprise before the door opened of its own accord to reveal a severe looking woman. She stood in the snow as if it were the middle of June. As Oliver looked more closely he saw a couple flakes heading for her coat that turned away at the last second and landed on the ground._

"_My mother's busy at the moment. Won't you come in?" he asked in a vain attempt to hide the trepidation in his voice. _

"_That would be lovely, thank you," the woman replied and stepped over the threshold. _

_The two sat in opposing chairs, and the boy made no point to hide his scrutinizing stare. She looked about fifty years old, but her clothing looked about a hundred and twenty years old. A high collar led into ruffled sleeves and a pigeon-bellied shirt. A narrow sash at the waist flowed into an ankle length skirt. The entire ensemble was black, and the boy thought she looked like someone attending a historical funeral party. His brain quickly flicked through facts to quickly deduce that her outfit complied most closely with clothing trends in 1907. Another mind-search and he had identified five people who died in 1907. Of course, she probably hadn't known any of them; the five names he pulled were all Americans. The only thing that brought him away from his analysis was her returning glare. She looked like she would eat him alive in a heartbeat. _

"_May I ask your name?" she said, gazing into his eyes. Her voice sounded less like the shriek of a disembodied harpy than he thought. He felt a little calmer at the completely human sound of her voice, but the steely undertone kept fear close at hand._

"_Oliver."_

"_And do you know a Miss Lillian?"_

"_That would be me," said Lillian, prancing into the room. The woman looked over her appearance, and her heart sank a little. The girl's filthy gingham dress equaled her matted hair in everything except color. At least she smelled decent. Her small ears and oversized grin gave her the look of a severely addled fruit bat, and the mischievous spark in her eyes reminded her too closely of two twins by the name of Weasley. Her pale skin, flecked with mud the woman didn't know could be found during a snowstorm, seemed to glow under the living room's lights. She was almost excruciatingly thin, as was her bespectacled brother, and she looked to be his height, that is to say, very short. The woman had no quarrel with short people; she had an issue with dirty children. She ardently wished she had come for the Oliver boy. His combed hair hung until just before his collar, and she took particular joy from his shoes, which were clearly were used for indoor purposes only. His silver eyes shone in time with his sister's, but the woman remarked that his excitement probably came from the massive book he was reading instead of whatever despicable thing the girl had been doing. "Why do you want to talk to me?"_

_Oliver cringed. His sister could be incredibly forward at times, and this moment was no exception. He normally didn't mind his Lillian's outgoing nature, but he wished she could put it on hold when guests came to their house, especially guests like this woman. She looked rather like a, "children should be seen, not heard," type of a person. _

"_You see," said the woman, turning to Lillian, "I'm here to offer you a position at our school."_

_Oliver grinned. He thought his sister would never get invited to a secondary school, and he had begun to worry. Oliver had, by this time, received dozens of invitations to boarding schools and private day schools across England while his sister, who hated her studies, hoped to be accepted to the local charter school. The two had accepted long ago that Oliver was the "gifted" child in the family. That didn't stop Oliver from wishing his sister would go to a nicer school._

"_Oh okay. Hold on a second." Lillian dashed up the stairs and into her mother's bedroom. "Mom! Someone invited me to a school!"_

_Mrs. Askett put down the pin in her hand and ran down the stairs. Half her blond hair hung straight while the other half cascaded in voluminous waves down her back. She tried to hide the unstyled half of her head underneath the better-looking parts. She failed miserably. Her makeup, flawless as always, at least portrayed some sort of decorum in front of her guest. Upon seeing the woman, she extended her hand. "Hello, I'm Gertrude. It's a pleasure to meet you."_

_The woman's returning handshake felt firm to Mrs. Askett's supple hands. The hand was not cracked with age, nor hardened with the callouses of manual labor. The handshake only imparted a strength Mrs. Askett would not have expected of the woman in the black dress. "My name is Minerva McGonagall. I'm currently headmistress of a secondary school, though I'll be retiring at the end of this year. I'd like to offer your daughter a position at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."_

_The woman's smile faded slowly to a look of disbelief, then one of disgust, then one of the best false smiles Minerva had seen in years. Still, it didn't reach her eyes, and Minerva could hear a slightly steely edge to the woman's tone. "I'm sorry, but what did you say your school teaches?"_

"_Witchcraft, and wizardry, though I'd say only the first term applies to your daughter. The two are completely synonymous terms of course, similar to the words actor and actress. I would have you know now that the wizarding world does not condone sexism of any sort." Minerva usually played the anti-sexism card early. Apparently, parents believed that witches lived in the same society as the humans who believed in witches did: one long before feminism. _

"_I'm not sure I quite understand what you mean by witchcraft. Is this a vocational school for magicians? If so, I'm not having Lillian become a party entertainer."_

"_I assure you, the vast majority of graduates do not make their livings through entertainment. The Minister of Magic, for example, is a graduate of Hogwarts."_

"_Wait, you people have a Ministry?" Mrs. Askett stopped to blink a few times, and shook her head in a vain attempt to rid it of nonsense. "Actually, what in the world are you people? How can a bunch of people who don't exist have a Ministry?"_

"_Yes, I don't believe I've explained this thoroughly." McGonagall sighed. Every time she hoped the family would simply catch on and accept her world without the required explanation. She was wrong, again. "We are wizards, and we live in a magical world within yours that's been secret since the International Statute of Secrecy signed in 1689. Basically," this part of the speech gave her a small thrill, though she never quite understood why, "we do magic."_

_Mrs. Askett looked like an odd mixture of someone trying not to laugh, and someone so shocked as to fall off her seat. Minerva could barely stifle a chuckle at the site of the woman's face. Those faces were the main reason why she kept up this duty, even as headmistress. She couldn't help but laugh at the outrage, disgust, and disbelief of Muggle parents in direct contrast with the complete belief of their children. She saved a couple choice reactions in her penseive for particularly trying days. The young girl, beside her mother, looked like she actually believed she was a wizard. "Is that why funny stuff happens around me all the time?"_

"_Well, it depends on the sort of thing that happens, but accidental magic might explain why odd things happen around you."_

"_Let's see… I ended up on the roof once when I was playing tag with Oliver, and he swore he didn't see me climb anywhere. There was this time I turned the milkman's hair orange because he didn't have the ice cream I like. I felt really bad about that one, actually. I keep flowers alive for a lot longer than they should be, though everyone says that's because my house has a really good temperature for plants. Teachers who punish me always seem to have," she paused, "interesting things happen to them. This one lady made me sit out at recess for something I didn't do, and the next day her nose was as long as Pinocchio's after telling a whole bunch of lies," her voice sped, "but that was an accident! I would never want to make someone's nose so ugly. Oh, and I can get myself things without picking them up if I think hard enough about it." Minerva's brows rose as a doll off the far shelf rose and floated to its master. "Is that what you do?"_

_Mrs. Askett's mouth opened like a cod fish out of water. "Honey, what did you just—"_

_McGonagall cut her off, "Yes, but your talents are just the beginning. You have remarkable control of your powers for someone so young, but you could achieve a lot more with some training. That is the purpose of Hogwarts. We train young witches and wizards to perform more advanced magic."_

"_What kind of advanced magic?" asked Oliver. _

"_Yeah, can we see something cool?"_

"_I don't know your definition of 'cool,' but I have a piece of magic I think you'll like," the professor said and promptly transformed into a tabby cat with square markings around her eyes. Mrs. Askett promptly shrieked, too shocked to flee the room. _

"_That's one for the penseive," Professor McGonagall thought as she transformed back into her human form and waited for the shaking woman to regain her composure. The boy, however, looked confused. "How did you do that?"_

"_Well, the animagus transformation is a very difficult piece of transfiguration magic which allows the caster to—"_

"_No, not that. How did you get your clothes to transform with you?"_

_Minerva stifled a chuckle; only a child would focus on her clothes instead of the transformation into a feline. "When we transform, we picture ourselves just as we are, and then we picture ourselves turning into an animal. I pictured myself with my clothes on, so my clothes transformed with me. The first transformation is the most difficult because we don't know which animal to picture in our minds. We essentially jump into the transformation blind, which leads to some rather interesting results."_

_Lillian laughed, a high, tinkling sound. "If I go to this school, will I learn how to be a wizard then?"_

"_Of course. Here are your necessary lists," Professor McGonagall said and passed the lists to Lillian. Her brother immediately peered over her shoulder to see the types of books she would need. McGonagall didn't doubt the family would need two copies of everything." I'll give you time to talk over the decision, but tomorrow I'll need to return to help you shop for school supplies if you do decide to attend."_

_McGonagall stood up, saw herself out, and disappeared off their doorstep with a loud cracking noise. Oliver ran outside to see if he could smell any sort of chemical residue, but he smelled nothing other than overgrown grass under freshly fallen snow and Lillian's now-cooled breakfast in the kitchen._

"Yes, mum." Lillian's reply brought Mrs. Askett out of her memories and back into brushing her daughter's hair. Lillian could feel every jagged move the brush made as it tore through her hairline, the grown of her head, the hair just by her neck, and all down her back. Dark brown curls did not relent to the brushing; they sprung back into their ringlets almost immediately. Apparently, the new ringlets were some sort of improvement, because Lillian's mother eventually stopped yanking.

She was just about to stand up when her mother pulled her back into the chair. "I still have to pull it back, you know. I don't want you looking like a ragamuffin at that Hogwarts place. Lillian sighed; it would be a long day if her mother kept this up.

Fortunately, pulling Lillian's hair into two buns took only a few minutes, as did adding the "good-luck ribbon," so Lillian was free to have her outfit criticized instead of her hair pulled. Apparently torn jeans wouldn't do for a train ride. "Mom! I'm wearing robes the whole time. Who cares?"

"I care! You have to wear street clothes for most of the train ride." She thrust a bundle at Lillian. "Wear these." Deciding it was better not to argue, Lillian slipped into the clothes and walked back into the kitchen.

"Can I go now?" she asked. Irritation crept into the edges of her voice.

Her mother blotted her watery eyes on a tissue as she looked at her daughter. "Jeez mom, I'll see you in a couple months," Lillian said and rolled her eyes. "Christmas isn't far, and I'm sure Professor McGonagall wouldn't mind if you visited. Okay scratch that, she probably would mind a lot. But you can send me loads of owls; you know how, right?"

"Yes, I know how to use it," Mrs. Askett replied and regarded the cage at the corner of the room warily. The large, tawny owl screeched, as if she forgot it knew how to be an obnoxious, annoying completely terrifying lump of feathers. She still held by her previous assessment of the bird; the thing was a menace, no matter how useful it might be. Of course, there was a very large gulf between knowing how to use something and having the courage to actually attempt it. "Do you want something else for breakfast?"

"Then you'll make me change my clothes again because I'll get a tiny spot of jam on my skirt or something. Mom, it's 9:15 and I have to be on the train by 11. Professor McGonagall said that the train doesn't wait for anyone, and I'm usually the person people have to wait for."

Mrs. Askett sighed, kissed her daughter on the forehead, and realized that she could do nothing else to stall her leaving. "Are you sure you're ready to leave?" she asked with a vain hope that her daughter would decide to stay.

"Great! Time to leave." Lillian practically dragged her father to the doorway, shoved him in the car, and clambered into the back. "Head out head out head out!" she chanted.

One minute Lillian had her feet on the ground. In the next second, they traded places with her face. Her father couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of his furiously blushing daughter. "All right there, Lilli?"

"Don't mention this. Ever," Lillian growled as she righted herself. A couple droplets of blood fell from a freshly scraped knee. "Whatever you do, don't tell mom. I'll never get to Hogwarts if she finds out about this. What did I trip over, anyway?"

"There's a box on the stoop with your name on it. Funny, the mail isn't supposed to come until noon today."

"Your daughter is being hauled off to a wizard boarding school and you think it's weird that the MAIL came early?" Lillian quipped.

"Touché, but it's also curious how none of the other mail came. Maybe this is from one of your folk."

Lillian picked up the box. It felt light in her hands, though it seemed like her dad thought it was a little heavy. A faint breeze whistled through her hair, and she could feel a tingling sensation in her fingertips. The feeling wasn't unlike her first experience with her 11 inch, maple wand with unicorn tail. "Dad, I know I'm supposed to have whatever's in here."

Her father rolled her eyes. "Well stop making it such a dramatized event and open the thing."

Lillian opened the lid to the worn, cardboard box. Inside she found a plain black camera from what looked like twenty or thirty years ago and several reams of film. "Wow," she said.

"I wasn't expecting a camera, certainly. Well, pack it into the car. We'll talk about it on the way there. Weren't you just saying you'd be late?"

"Oh yeah!" Lillian said and bounded into the car. By nightfall she'd be sitting at the Gryffindor table in Hogwarts. She was sure she'd be sorted into Gryffindor. She was definitely the bravest person she knew. "Except you're not really brave at all," said a small voice in her head, "You've done brave things because you're stupid and you get yourself into stupid situations. Gryffindors put themselves into those situations to help others. You just do it because you're an idiot. Be happy you won't get sorted into Slytherin." "Slytherin's not such a bad house," Lillian whined at the voice. "I'm not some objective measuring system," it replied, "I'm only the inside of your brain, so I think what you _really_ think. If you say Slytherin isn't so bad, then why do I, the voice inside your head, think it is?" Lillian found herself at a loss for what to say.

* * *

The car couldn't speed quickly enough along the suburban roads around their house. Her father hummed along with awful oldies music. "Rock Lobster" appeared to be the song of the day. B-52 was probably a very shortened version of, "Become insane-52 ways." His throaty voice didn't follow the tune, if the song had one. His left hand tapped the steering wheel idly, and Lillian realized she certainly wouldn't miss that part of her father's voice when she left for Hogwarts.

Lillian glanced at her watch: 9:30. One and a half hours and the wizarding world would snatch her from her family, possibly forever. She remembered reading about someone named Harry Potter who lived in a cupboard because he was a wizard, and his aunt hated her sister when she became a witch. "What if Ollie hates me?" she asked herself. She loved her brother to bits, and hated to admit he was as horribly flawed as she, but he had struggled with jealousy since they were little. He didn't mind if someone received something of equal value or shared everything he had, but Oliver couldn't stand being second-best. "That's probably what drove him to school," Lillian thought and sighed. He insisted it was fine that she had magic and he didn't, but she couldn't be sure. As well as they knew one another, Lillian could always tell when Oliver lied, and that phrase had "liar liar pants on fire" written all over it. A tangent took Lillian's thoughts to a spell that would light a liar's trousers. She could see his eyes, clouded from sadness. He would brush his hair across his eyes to try and hide them, but that only made him look worse. He certainly started reading more since Lillian accepted her position at Hogwarts. She wondered how he would have felt had she refused. He probably would have protested outwardly and cheered to himself that he was still the "talented" one of the family. Of course, he would have felt terribly guilty about his feelings and then started brooding. Lillian couldn't win; Oliver would be upset either way.

Through the open window, Lillian smelled faint traces of lawn fertilizer and worn tires. The car passed a couple kids on rollerblades; it looked like they skated forwards and moved backwards as the car ran by their slow bodies. Lillian searched for the tweeting bird somewhere overhead. She thought she spotted a bluejay, but the bird flew away before she could see it closely. The blue sky above had puffy, white clouds that Lillian watched while her father drove to London. They formed swirling molds of wands, hats, cauldrons, and she swore she saw a large snake flicking puffs of a white fluffy tongue at her. The puffs transformed into the image of a face, and it took her a few seconds to recognize what she thought the clouds said. "Dad," Lillian began worriedly.

"What, popkin?"

"I forgot to say bye to Oliver!"

"He'll live," her dad chuckled. "He'll probably be happier you didn't wake him up. Actually, he's probably been up for hours reading Bronte or something. You know how long it takes us to get him out of a book."

"I guess," she replied and gazed out the window.

* * *

Miles behind, an inconsolable Oliver ran down the stairs. "Lillian wasn't in her room! Where is she?"

"She went off to school today. It starts on September 1st, and the train was due to leave at 11:00. Your father drove her to the train station."

Oliver's first thought was one of jealousy because he wouldn't get to see the magical train platform located between platforms nine and ten at the same time his sister would. He quashed the thought with familial worry that crashed over him like an incoming tide onto a beach. "I-I" he tried to begin. His voice came like a worn whisper. His sister stole the fire in his tone and left it a barren shell of the confident voice it used to be. Oliver was never particularly vocal, and without his sister his voice disappeared completely. Oliver took a couple deep breaths an tried again, "Mom, I didn't get to say goodbye." His eyes filled with tears that threatened to overflow onto his already blotchy cheeks. "I won't get to see her for months, and y-you didn't let me say goodbye." The first tear spilled over to run across his left cheek. He didn't bother to bat it away.

"Oliver, it was all rather sudden, and she had to get going. It was already 9:15 when I finished brushing her hair."

A glint of rage sparked in the near-dead silver eyes. "Oh, so you had time to brush her hair, which she doesn't even like, but you didn't have time to let me say goodbye to her? How could you?" Betrayal poured from his face, and Mrs. Askett had to look away.

"Ollie, I'm sure I can find a way to let you see her before winter holidays, if that will make you feel b—"

"No that won't make me feel better! I didn't get to see her off, and she's my sister, mom! If you drove me over right now I still probably wouldn't feel perfect, because I knew you didn't think of me this morning at all! I know today is her day, but it's an important day for the two of us. We've never been out of the same classroom, and you think I can just let go like that?" Oliver became vaguely aware that he sounded like a massive sap with his talk of feelings and clinginess, but another wave of newly-discovered loneliness washed the shame away.

Mrs. Askett watched her son work himself into a frenzy. Oliver was usually the calm one in the family; his rages were few, far between, and very well-justified. "Can you at least call dad so I can say goodbye?"

The mother dialed up her husband on the phone, only to find that he left his cell phone on the kitchen counter. "Sorry, Ollie."

Oliver ran up to his room. He wouldn't sob, but he'd be damned if he couldn't study angrily for the next day or so. Perhaps he might even quit eating to spite the woman; he never cared much for food anyway. Eating the stuff simply took time away from his studies, and he had a lot of research to do on those wizarding types. Of course, getting hungry might be a problem, but he would consider such trivial things later. For now, the smell of inked pages and hard binding beckoned. The situation called for an extremely reading of philosophy. He might give his brain a break and start with Kierkegaard instead of Hegel, he thought as he picked up a large tome on his bedside table.

"Oliver," his mother's tinkling, cautious voice rang up the stairs.

"What," she didn't deserve the inflection to make it a question.

"It's only 9:35. I sent them on their way to make sure they had time for Lillian's trunk. You can still see her off if you want."

Oliver sniffed and grabbed a bag, filled with books of course. He doubted he would read much on the car ride.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: See previous disclaimer. I will not include a disclaimer before every chapter unless there's something new I need to disclaim. Here, for example, I use a paragraph out of chapter 7 in the Sorcerer's Stone, because I thought it was a great quote from Professor McGonagall. That paragraph is not, nor ever will be, mine. **

An elderly security guard glanced over his morning paper. The pictures remained stationary, as he reminded himself that they should. He would not think about the moving pictures in the newspaper of a fiery headed man who walked by a few minutes earlier. The moving pictures were simply a trick of the light. His eyesight had been going for years anyway, the man reminded himself as he rubbed his eyes with wrinkled fists. He saw another group of people, this time a rather attractive blonde woman and what looked to be her son, hurrying toward a pillar. Why the pillars today were so popular, he never understood. He swore about thirty years ago he saw a bunch of people with cloaks walking out of the thing! Why would people in cloaks walk out of a pillar? Why would people walk out of a pillar at all? The man shrugged; he really was getting old. He held his newspaper in steady hands and began to read, sure that people did not suddenly emerge from pillars and that pictures in newspapers did not move.

Mrs. Askett and Oliver bustled through a maze of people. She carried her large, leather satchel over her shoulder, and Oliver toted his bag of books. The pair looked ready for a short holiday in France, their cover story if anyone asked. They hadn't gone so far as to actually buy tickets, which Oliver said made their excuse pointless, but Mrs. Askett insisted on an alibi. An errant strand of wispy blonde dangled in front of her eyes; she blew it out of the way with a large huff and kept walking. The pattern continued until Oliver chuckled, and Mrs. Askett decided that the hair was determined to obscure her vision. Quite unlike herself, Mrs. Askett wore a pair of jeans and a simple cardigan. She hadn't bothered to don any accessories, and she certainly wasn't wearing her typical layer of eye shadow, foundation, and primer. The woman felt practically naked, bearing her skin to the world in such an ungodly fashion. Her son fared no better, in her eyes. His jeans were holed, probably due to sharing with his sister, and his brown hair appeared to defy gravity. Mrs. Askett quickly wondered whether those wizards had a spell to make hair defy gravity, and whether someone decided to play a cruel prank on her sense of style.

Trying to look inconspicuous, Mrs. Askett strolled to an innocuous brick pillar. The mortar had grayed over the years, and the bricks looked less red and more the color of rust on an old chain fence. The pillar looked thick enough to span across one, admittedly large, person's torso. The cement around it was dotted with the scuffmarks of a thousand shoes, of a hundred trolleys, and of a fair few tears. A bright sign at the top left read "9" while its compliment read "10" from the other side. It was the fourth pillar away from the olive trash bins, just as the McGonagall woman described. At first glance it looked, incredibly solid. A closer inspection proved that it looked just as solid close up as it did from afar. The woman grimaced, twirling a strand of blond hair through her fingers. A skinny, bespectacled boy tapped his foot beside her. "For Christ's sake, mom! It's 10:30! Are we going to just look at the bloody thing?"

Mrs. Askett glared at him for his language; Oliver thought of the toothbrush and the bar of lye soap waiting for him at home. He shuddered. He swore he saw a security guard's head lift out of a newspaper for a second, but it returned a few seconds later to resume its reading. She ever so slowly approached the pillar and leaned against it. A moment later, Oliver had lost his mother. "Wicked," he said in a low voice to avoid attention.

Mrs. Askett screamed as she fell through the portal. The brick caressed her face, and she screamed that she could apply a caress to an obviously solid brick wall. She could see nothing except for the arms that flailed wildly about her face and the obnoxious strand of hair that refused to leave her alone. She thought maybe leaning against the pillar would feel less alarming than running full tilt at a wall. She was wrong. Nothing could prepare her for the split moment between worlds, where bricks became black air and she could smell a surprising hint of pumpkin and cinnamon. "They scent this thing?" she wondered in that split second, and then asked herself how she could be thinking so many things at once. A moment later, her left foot touched solid ground, and she stared.

The platform looked like everything she knew and nothing she'd ever seen. A train sat to her left, blowing steam from its front. The steam looked like clouds as it left, forming wizards' hats every so often. She realized then that the steam made the platform smell like pumpkins and cinnamon, not the brick itself. The cement floor and the pillars looked identical to those on the Muggle side, her side, of the platform, but somehow these were completely alien. Everything here looked golden, shown in the light just a little more than out there. She watched families, hundreds of them, cart their children onto the train. One girl in particular she recognized. Hair brushed, for once, and clothes clean, for once, she grinned, as always. Mrs. Askett grinned in return. The grins didn't communicate, and the girl pranced around her father, too excited to see her mother smiling from across a crowded train station.

Oliver stood on the Muggle side of the train station. This was his last chance to deny that wizards existed. Sure, his mother had just disappeared through a solid brick wall, but that could be a very convincing trick of the light. She would reappear from behind the pillar in a couple minutes and tell him that she was only joking. Lillian and his father would walk from a few pillars away and rejoin them to get ice cream, and Oliver would never consider himself the gifted child in the family again. The entire wizard thing could be an elaborate ruse to deflate his big head. Oliver brought a hand up to his neck absently, and rubbed the space where his neck connected to his upper back. He peered into the distance; his mother definitely wasn't coming back. He wouldn't go peering around the pillar and look like an idiot; the security guard would definitely notice if he made a scene. "Here goes nothing," he muttered and ran full tilt at the wall, bag of books banging against his thigh.

The postman swore he saw two people fall through the pillar that listed platforms nine and ten. "Preposterous," he thought and started to approach the pillar. A young woman approached him then, asking when the next train to France would leave. He forgot to check the platform, and the woman sighed as she realized a memory charm wouldn't be necessary.

"What the he—" bellowed Oliver as he barreled out of the brick wall and into his mother. "You might not want to stand there, you know," he mumbled through her hair. The two were tangled in an embrace complicated enough to be called a pretzel. Mrs. Askett's arm, still clasping her handbag, flopped above their torsos like a dying fish. "Mom, we need to get out of the way before we cause a pileup," Oliver tried to pull his leg out from between his mom's arm and her torso, but she needed to make the first move. "Mom, we have to go. Get up!"

Mrs. Askett rolled over, groaning. At least twenty wizards stared at the heap of bodies by the pillar's entrance. Lillian glanced over and looked back to her father, then did a double take. "Oliver!" she shouted gleefully.

"Hey, Lilli," her brother said, still trying to get up.

Mr. Askett couldn't hide his guffaws as he walked over to his wife and son. He pulled his wife up with one arm, and reached down the other to ruffle Oliver's hair as he brushed himself off. Oliver hated to be helped standing. "What are you doing here?"

"We came to see you off, of course," said Mrs. Askett, "I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier. We should have all come in the first place, Lillian."

Lillian couldn't stop grinning at her brother. "I'm magic," she said in a sing-song-y voice. "I'm not insane, and now you have proof I'm not insane! You can't call me Crazy Lilli anymore!" she said. She wouldn't push the taunt any further because of her brother's temperament, but she wanted him to acknowledge that he was wrong, at least.

Oliver hung his head in mock shame, "Oh great witch. What shall I do to better serve thee?" he asked with a glint in his eye.

"Chocolate, fair peasant!" Lillian declared and puffed out her chest like a pigeon on a city skyscraper.

"But my dearest, giant squids have eaten all the kingdom's chocolate. Whatever shall we do?"

Lillian's face contorted into a mask of horror. "We must—"

"Lillian," Mr. Askett cut in, "we need to get you on the train. It's nearly 10:40. You'll be late for your train, and then we'll never get you to Hogwarts. And if what McGonagall told me is correct, your first night is extremely important in defining your time there. You get Sorted, remember?"

Lillian grinned, "And to think, Ollie, you could get to go in the House for smart kids. They have one of those, you know."

"Yes I know!" Oliver retorted angrily, "I read the book."

"Great, because I didn't!" Lillian smiled and jumped up and down a couple times. Hogwarts would definitely be the most exciting part of life thus far. Oliver couldn't help but be jealous, and this time she understood where it came from. Of course, she could understand his jealousy at other times too, like when she beat him at sports. Both of them had the same issues with playing sports, and she still beat him every time. Of course, the bookworm got to gloat every time report cards came in and Lillian barely passed her classes, so she couldn't feel too bad for a little envy on his part.

"Don't you have to get on the train to actually get Sorted? I swear we're just going to stand here, and you'll watch the train leave. Come on," he said, pulling her over to the train entrance. Mr. Askett followed with the trunk.

"Are you ready for this?" he asked his wife.

Mrs. Askett wore a pair of sunglasses over her glassy eyes. "I don't think any of the parents are, to be honest."

Mr. Askett saw tens of other parents, some wearing sunglasses to hide their tears, other crying openly, and others who looked like he did, empty. He pulled his wife closer to his lean body and kissed the top of her head. "We'll be saying the same things to Oliver next week, you know." He watched his wife sniff and wished he had the same emotion within him to do the same. He simply couldn't feel a thing, and he couldn't be sure exactly why. His eyes stayed dry, and his face stayed cool. His hand was steady as it pushed Lillian's trunk. He thought he might have out-emoted himself the night before. He hadn't slept a wink, tossing, turning, and imagining horrible things happening to his daughter if he dared let her out of his sight. By breakfast, the man looked like he'd seen a ghost, and three cups of coffee had barely softened the haunted look in his eyes. A hand rubbed across his scratchy chin; he didn't remember rubbing his face, but the hand looked like his. The tiny hairs on the knuckles, the bitten nails, and the inflamed nail-beds certainly looked like his. The third finger looked slightly shorter than that of his left from when he broke it as a kid. A simple, gold band gleamed on the forth finger. He constantly tried to create comparisons between that band and his marriage, but he couldn't think of any. He wasn't any good with words; he left his wife to handle those types of things.

Oliver and Lillian rushed through the throng of children in the train. Most compartments had been filled by older students, but Oliver pointed out that the back would have fewer kids. "Here, Lillian. Find a compartment back here and I'll tell mom and dad to bring your bags to the back," said Oliver and ran off to find his parents. Lillian blinked as he left, shocked. Oliver hardly ever took charge; that was usually her prerogative. She walked to the back, alone. She didn't want to sit with anyone else, not for the first time. Children didn't often like to be with her, much as she tried. True, she would usually do something like end up on a roof without an explanation, but she had seen nothing that would prove these other children different. Her head hung slightly lower than normal as she approached the last car. None of them were unoccupied. This was her last chance to avoid sitting with people she didn't know.

Lillian peered into the last car. A man slept on one of the seats; he twitched a couple times. Lillian supposed he would do, since students would be less likely to bother her with a professor present. She closed the door for a moment and placed her head in her hands, grateful for the rest. It didn't last long; rest never lasted long, even at night. She could hear her brother calling, and she didn't want to wake the professor.

"Where are mom and dad?" she asked.

"I told them we could handle the bags. We can handle them, right?" Oliver asked, his voice moving just too quickly for comfort.

"No! Do you know how heavy this is?"

"Yes, thanks. I dragged it 'till kingdom come to find you. Who's bright idea was it to have you in the back, anyway?"

"Yours."

Oliver grinned, "Oh, right."

"Here, I'll just set the suitcase on the floor. There's a sleeping professor in my car, so he can magic it up to the racks when he wakes up. It's not like the suitcase will bother anybody on the floor, since I'll be the only conscious one in there."

Oliver looked doubtful. The books in that suitcase would not receive the proper care due to them if the suitcase sat on something so common as the ground. True, they were encased within one of his special cloth bags, and then within a special compartment in Lillian's trunk, but they could still be jostled. Placing them on the ground might lower their center of gravity so the books would be less likely to topple though, Oliver considered. "Oh all right. Hey, It's 10:53. I've got to get outside with mom and dad, or I'll be shipped off to Hogwarts too!" Oliver said and ran out after a final embrace. Lillian hated to see that what his eyes said: please let me be shipped off to Hogwarts.

The atmosphere grew more frantic. Students thrust hands out of windows, and Lillian felt she should do the same. Instead, she leaned her face against the closed glass, her fingers tracing hearts into the short-lasting fog. Her brother signed a heart back to her, and the pair kept up the elaborate pantomime for what she hoped would be an endless string of minutes. In that moment, she wanted her year to begin and end on this train. She watched as half the fog faded off the glass faded before the other. Half a heart sat on the window, and she hoped Oliver would see it. He signed back a broken heart; he always understood. She watched his massive glasses fill with fog. She saw the tear fall from his face as he wiped the glasses on his worn jeans, and she saw him wipe his eyes, embarrassed, as he replaced his glasses.

The train moved forward. The professor in the compartment rolled over in his sleep, her brother's eyes snapped open, and Lillian swore she left half her soul back on the platform. Mr. and Mrs. Askett stood back a few feet, waving with false smiles plastered to their faces. Running full tilt, Oliver tried to catch the train. Lillian couldn't be sure if he ran to see her longer, or if he wanted to jump on the train. As the last car pulled out of the station, his reason ceased to matter. Lillian wished her brother would stop mattering, or that her parents would stop mattering. She wouldn't feel so upset if she hated them.

* * *

_Snap! _The professor salt upright, wand pointed out in front of him. Lillian shrieked and dived under the compartment bench, dropping her camera to the ground.

"Whatthehellwasthat?" asked a groggy voice.

"Sorry, professor. It's just my new camera. I've never used one before, and I wanted to see how it worked."

"Oh, that's all right. You can come out now, I won't bite. Promise," chuckled the man. "I do have a friend though… his rat bit someone on the train to Hogwarts once. Great rat he had. Of course, it turned out he actually had a murderer instead of a rat, so maybe the rat wasn't so great after all."

Hardly reassured, Lillian covered her chest with her knees as she sat on the bench, as if that would help protect her against his wand. The man chuckled again, and the subtle shaking of his shoulders moved his hair just enough to reveal a lightning bolt scar. "You're Harry Potter, aren't you?"

He sighed. "I wondered how long it would take you to figure it out. Of course, it's never long with this thing," he said and pointed at the scar on his forehead. "Yes, I'll be your defense professor for the year."

"Aren't you an auror?"

"Well, Voldemort placed a curse on the school that made it impossible for anyone to hold a position as the defense teacher for more than a year. Apparently he made the curse outlast his death, and we still haven't figured out how to break it. Bill Weasley's working on it right now, but he hasn't found anything yet. McGonagall needed me as a teacher, and since this is her last year as Headmistress I thought I'd humor her. I don't really want her as my boss though," Harry said and grimaced.

Lillian relaxed her shoulders a bit and smiled. "Yeah, she's kind of scary."

"Oh, so you're a Muggle-born then? I guess she took you to Diagon Alley for your school supplies?"

"Yeah. I was the first kid she took, since she insisted she do it in alphabetical order. I'm Lillian Askett by the way."

Harry extended a hand. "Pleasure."

Lillian saw the way his hand moved to meet hers as she clasped it. Scars saturated the surface, and a couple hairs dotted the knuckles, just like her father's hands. The grip felt like her father's too, strong without revealing all its strength in order to protect. His eyes really were a brilliant green, she reflected as he looked at her. They shone with the same green fire Lillian had seen people use as transportation.

"What, comparing my eyes to my mother's?" Harry asked.

"No, to the Floo Network," Lillian replied, her face devoid of jocularity.

Harry clutched the stitch in his side. A couple tears of mirth ran down his face, and he couldn't stop laughing for the life of him. Lillian's comment hadn't even been funny, but the determined set of her tiny jaw… priceless. Harry realized that someone had compared his eyes to something other than his mother's for the first time in his life. He rather arrogantly hoped they would be compared to something more majestic than the Floo Network, emeralds maybe, but it was better than hearing the same thing from every single person who knew his parents. Yes, his eyes looked like his mother's, but what did people tell her? "Your eyes will look like your son's." He assumed people would actually bother to describe her eyes. Perhaps James had thought her eyes looked like the Floo Network too.

A knock sounded on the door. Harry stopped laughing and pulled out his wand. Lillian's eyes grew wide as Harry said, "Enter," with more authority than she thought someone could manage after hearing his eyes compared to a means of connecting fireplaces.

A portly witch opened the compartment door with a wrinkled hand. "Oh hello, Harry dear. Anything off the trolley?"

"Hi Mrs. Finnigan. Enjoying your retirement?" Harry said with more than a little ice in his tone. Mrs. Finnigan had not been kind for the first part of the Second War.

"Yes, thank you. I like this job. I only have to work twice a year, I get all the food off the trolley I want, and I can see my grandkids on their way to school. Their opinion of my job is much less favorable, let me assure you." The witch bent down to meet Lillian's eyes. "Anything you want, dear?"

Lillian pulled out a few sickles. "Um… could I have…" Lillian was speechless. The cart had more types of candy than she thought existed, and she couldn't find any of her favorites.

"Looking for the Mars bars?" Harry asked. Lillian nodded emphatically. "They don't have them in the wizarding world, though they do have chocolate frogs. Those are kind of like Mars bars, but wizard candy is a bit more interesting." Harry emphasized the last word, and Lillian shuddered to think of turning into a frog after eating her candy.

"Here, we'll take the lot," Harry said and handed the trolley lade a pile of galleons. Lillian stared, her eyes bugging out of her face like a house elf's.

The two sat on the same bench as Harry showed her Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. Lillian looked skeptical as he popped a dark brown one into his mouth. A couple seconds later, Harry gagged, spewing saliva and bits of jellybean across the compartment. "Don't," he coughed, "eat," he sputtered, "the brown ones."

"Why?"

Harry hacked a few times. "They're dirt and worm flavored. Vile," he shuddered.

Lillian picked up a deep purple jelly bean and bit into it warily. "Ooh black licorice! My favorite!" she said and munched on all the deep purple ones in their seven boxes of jellybeans.

"Trust you to find a good color the first bean you try," Harry said and sampled another. Apparently that one tasted like soap. He stuck out his tongue and tried a red one.

"Can't catch a break," Harry said after a swig of pumpkin juice. "Want to know what the red one was? Not cherry. Hot sauce. Are you kidding me?"

Lillian couldn't help but giggle as she popped a blue one into her mouth: cotton candy. "Mmm. I like these things."

Harry turned to the rest of their loot. "I'll go for some of these," he said and reached for a chocolate frog on the other bench, which had been dubbed the "candy bench."

Lillian could see a mound of chocolate frogs, which apparently acted like frogs before she was allowed to eat them. She passed Harry the card; apparently his son, Albus, liked to collect them. There were some slimey looking, gummy things over to the side. Harry assured her they were the best candy on board, jelly slugs. Lillian took a bite of one and had to agree with him. It had a softer texture than gummy bears in the Muggle world, and they were just as fun to throw in the air as they were to eat. Harry looked at her skeptically, then bit into a green jelly slug. She bit into hers, a red one, and tasted the most flavorful cherry candy she had ever had. She didn't even think candy could taste so good! "Oh my God, what is this? Ambrosia or something?" she said softly as she devoured one after the other of the jelly slugs. Harry made sure to help her, and the two finished their stash in a matter of minutes.

She didn't like the ice mice much, those came next. They had far too much mint in them for her tastes, but Harry ate them just the same. He ate most of the candy on the bench, and Lillian didn't know how he'd have room for dinner, or how he could fit through the compartment door if he ate so much all the time. She stuck to nibbling on her last jelly slug, smelling it, eating it when she dared, and throwing it in the air as high as she could without fear of it falling. Harry glanced over in an exasperated, parental sort of way. "Trust me, I'll still eat this if it falls on the floor," Lillian said and grinned. Harry rolled his eyes and looked out the window. The two were passing some sort of village. The train slowed a little, and Lillian could see the sign of a store called Honeydukes. She hoped they sold more jelly slugs; she had always needed to gain about twenty pounds, anyway.

Harry glanced at her clothes, "You'll need to change into your school uniform," he observed and stood up. "I'd uh… I'll leave you to that," he mumbled and stepped out of the compartment.

Lillian shrugged her perfectly coordinated clothes, according to her mother anyway, onto the floor and pulled out her school uniform from her bag. White button-down, gray vest, gray skirt, knee socks, anything was better than her mother's sense of fashion. At least these clothes were comfortable, and she got to wear a cape! She quickly folded her clothes, stuffed them back into the trunk, and poked her head out of the compartment.

"Mr. Harry, sir? I'm decent; you can come back in now."

Harry, still flushed with embarrassment, shuffled back into the compartment and plopped onto their shared bench. The girl in front of him looked more like a Muggle than most Muggle-borns he'd seen his first year. Of course, he was Muggle-raised, so he wouldn't have known what it was like for the purebloods to look at him from the outside. She looked far too thin for comfort; he could see ribs through the tight shirt she wore before she changed out of her robes. "I probably looked like that too," Harry thought grimly. She looked a little like Luna too, he remembered. He looked her over; it certainly wasn't the clothes. Her eyes, he noticed, those looked exactly like Luna's. Wide, gray orbs set prominently in her face, Lillian's eyes were the spitting image of his friend's.

"What, comparing my eyes to spell by-product?" Lillian joked.

"No, to my friend Luna's."

The silence seemed to drag on forever. Lillian didn't want to be rude and ask the professor to stop staring at her eyes, but he was starting to wear on her thin fuse. Harry finally took the hint from an exasperated sigh and dropped his eyes. Lillian pulled a jelly slug out from inside the bench cushion.

"Hey, where'd you get that?" Harry said, about to make a grab for the candy before realizing he wasn't a student at Hogwarts anymore.

"Magic, professor." Lillian put on her most innocent expression possible and blinked at him a few times.

"Unbelievable," Harry muttered under his breath. How this girl could manage to have only delicious jellybeans and find every single jelly slug that fell behind the bench cushion was beyond him. Instead of thinking about her extraordinary luck, Harry gazed out the window. He could smell Hogwarts from a mile away. It smelled of old stones, old trees, and old magic. The magic flew through his nostrils like the smell of an arriving thunderstorm. The air crackled with safety wards and preparations for the night's festivities. He could pick up a faint hint of House Elf cooking that wafted from the Hufflepuff kitchens as the train drew to a stop. He knew one of the professors had charmed the smell to carry across the lake and into the noses of hungry and waiting students, but that didn't lessen his awe.

Harry looked up at Hogwarts and almost gasped. It had been years since he'd seen the castle in its nighttime glory. Lights shown from every window, and the torches gave those windows an ethereal quality only an old castle could possess. The black lake looked like glass; it reflected Hogwarts in every detail from its still waters. On Disillusioned, Harry wove his way among the first year students clambering for their boats. He saw a tentacle rip through the water's surface as his boat crossed; the image of Hogwarts disappeared under the images of boats and giant squid appendages. It would return, he had no doubt, but the original image was destroyed.

"Lillian," he whispered.

She whipped her head around, seeing nothing. A couple first years shot her odd looks. "What?" she whispered back.

"I'm invisible," said Harry.

"You can do that?" Lillian asked in awe.

"'Course I can do that. I'm clearly the most powerful wizard ever." Even though Lillian missed his devilish grin, she couldn't mistake the sarcasm dripping from his words.

"Yes, clearly. What do you want?" she hissed.

"Good luck."

Lillian had no clue how to respond.

* * *

"Welcome to Hogwarts. Now, in a few moments, you will pass through these doors and join your classmates. But before you can take your seats you must be sorted into your houses. They are Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. Now, while you are here, your house will be like your family. Your triumphs will earn you house points. Any rule breaking, and you will lose points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup. The Sorting ceremony will begin momentarily." Headmistress Minerva McGonagall left the first years in the entryway as she proceeded to greet her students in the Great Hall. As headmistress, she felt entitled to performing her favorite parts of Hogwarts tradition, if she so desired. The Sorting was certainly one of her personal high points each year. The opening speech she typically wasn't thrilled to enact.

As Professor McGonagall returned to lead the first years into the Great Hall, Lillian stared about her in awe. Stars draped the vaulted ceiling in a dotted blanket of night. A star far to the right twinkled to create sparkles across a golden plate. The plate glowed with light, but the student sitting there seemed unimpressed. Lillian couldn't speak, only stare and wonder how those around her could whisper to one another. Thousands of candles floated in midair, creating shadows that danced across the walls and near the high table. The line of professors sat in stony silence. She could tell that a couple wanted to save face, the charms professor could barely contain his excitement. Others tried to suppress an annoyed eye roll or an angered glare at their newest charges. The most inexperienced students were often the most frustrating, and they brought a mess of uncertainty that bothered professors to no end. Harry sat at the front table a couple seats from McGonagall and gave her a wink. Lillian grinned back and tried to wink. She could see Harry trying to mute a laugh even from halfway across the Great Hall.

At the front of the hall sat a faded sorcerer's hat. The color, more brown now than its original black, was almost indiscernible through the scuffmarks and dirt worked into the fabric. Patches across a spectrum of colors adorned the hat, and two small indents looked like eyes at the front. Suddenly, the rim opened to reveal a gaping hole, and the hat flapped its cloth gums to sing. The voice, low and throaty, boomed from the brim to fill the entire hall with an off-tune expression of wizarding pride. Much as Lillian wanted to cover her ears, she listened, captured by the hat's words. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin, four houses united by one common goal, and separated by four separate means. A sense of warring families, but another sense of shared Hogwarts pride. Lillian yearned desperately to feel a part of something larger than herself in that moment, as she gazed at the old hat. After one thousand years, he had more of a twinkle in his nonexistent eyes than most living people she'd seen. To think she would have the honor of wearing the hat was more than Lillian could conceive. She simply gawked at the hat as he finished his song, and flicked her eyes around the room to be sure she didn't miss anything.

"Askett, Lillian," called out the sure voice of Professor McGonagall.

"Oh crap," Lillian thought, "I wanted to have the honor, but I didn't want to have it _now_," she grumbled as she walked to a three-legged stool by the high table.

Lillian's footling looked confident, but she trembled with every step she took. The Sorting Hat fell over her ears, and Lillian thanked whatever powers watched over her that she couldn't see the school as a hat assessed her character. She felt like a sinner trying to approach St. Peter at the gates of heaven, and she assumed he would be just as nervous. The blackness would be comforting, if it weren't for the hat's voice in her ear.

"Hello there."

Lillian started, her shoulders tensing and the rational portion of her brain fighting not to hiss at the threat. "Hi, I guess," said Lillian.

"Well you're not going in Ravenclaw," the hat chuckled as he sorted through a couple memories. "You'd do awfully there, hate to say it." He stopped, "Do you like to cook?"

"What?" Lillian thought.

"Just curious. My job is rather boring without a little bit of conversation now and then. Hmmm… you certainly don't have the subtlety or the ambition for Slytherin," Lillian flushed a deep red.

"But out of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff… where to put you? They're very connected, these houses. You're brave to protect the people you love, and that's an equally Gryffindor and Hufflepuff action."

"I'd like Gryffindor please," said Lillian in a small voice.

"But why? The last child I let pass under my brim with a choice for his house did well there, true, but he also had a good reason for wanting to be in Gryffindor. He wanted to continue his strong friendship with a young Ron Weasley, and he wanted to avoid the temptation to turn to dark magic. Can you think of any reason you should go to Gryffindor other than because the letter G is infinitely better than the letter H or some nonsense? By the way, the letter H is infinitely better than any other letter. It begins the word hat after all." The sorting hat chuckled at his joke, and Lillian shuddered at the chuckle in her head that distinctly wasn't her own, not to mention the lousiness of the hat's joke.

"My joke wasn't lousy!" the hat insisted.

"I'm not having an argument with you in my brain, but it definitely was. I don't care if you think you can win the argument because you can see all my flaws through my brain. This is my territory and I say that I win."

The hat grumbled, "I should just put you in Hufflepuff for this."

"I wouldn't mind being there."

"Really? And why not?"

"Well, all the brave stuff I do, I do because I'm acting like a moron, according to my brother. I haven't had the chance to prove my loyalty to anyone yet, and I think Hufflepuff would help me do that. On the other hand, Gryffindor generally holds a higher name to the wizarding world, and that was Mr. Harry's house."

"You like him, don't you?"

Lillian made a disgusted face before realizing the house didn't have a concept of a teenage girl's version of the word "like." "Yes, I like him. He's a nice teacher, and I think he'd be proud of me as a Gryffindor."

"Let me tell you a secret that's actually not a secret at all," the hat said, "Harry's daughter Lily is in Hufflepuff. She's a year older than you are, and Harry seems pretty proud of her. I saw him visit the Headmaster's office, and I can tell when a parent is upset about a choice I made. He wasn't. Besides, you just met him on the train!"

"Yeah, but he seems like someone I want to know better, like a dad or something," Lillian flushed. "Wait, why did I just tell you that? You could have just rooted through my mind and gotten the same information."

"Where would be the fun in that?" asked the hat, "and trust me, he won't mind."

"HUFFLEPUFF!" the hat screamed.


	3. Chapter 3

A hundred emotions raced through Lillian's mind. She could hardly say she was surprised with the Hat's decision; it had already narrowed the choices down to two before choosing. Frankly, she was petrified, and her first thought was of a hundred ways to land on the roof instead of sit in front of these people. The hundreds of faces staring looked like pale jack-o-lanterns, leering at her as McGonagall pulled the hat off her head. As she saw an entire yellow-clad table clapping for her, her second thought was one of happiness. Her third thought was primarily of embarrassment as the students stared at her expectantly. Harry coughed slightly from his place at the staff table, earning him a particularly choice look from McGonagall. The Great Hall had to stare at her for a moment for the thought to finally dawn on her: she needed to move to a table for the next student. Flushing deep read, she sprinted for the yellow table and plunked down in her seat. "It's a good thing we don't have to do that more than once," Lillian thought grimly.

"Hello," whispered a second-year Hufflepuff. "Terry Moscer. No one minds about what happened up there," Lillian flushed as deep as the Gryffindor banner, "I always felt so bad for the poor kid who had to go first. Everyone is pretty much clueless until the first one goes."

Lillian nodded and tried to wipe the grimace off her face. "Well, it's all over now, right?" he said and turned back to watch the Sorting.

Lillian looked back up at the staff table. A massive beast of a man sat at the far edge of the table. He took two and a half seats just for himself, and Lillian could see his massive feet from her spot at the table. They dwarfed those of every professor at the table to a comical degree. His beetle-black eyes, small for his head, twinkled in the light of the Great Hall. The beetles were almost obscured by the tangle of hair that covered his head and face. The curls almost brushed the shoulder of the professor nearest him, a stout old woman wearing an old-fashioned nurse's hat. Her white robes fairly glowed from a sort of magical bleach, and the stern expression on her face reminded Lillian of every school nurse she'd had since kindergarten. A wisp of white hair slipped from beneath the hat, and she tucked it back into her bun with a finger. Her hands short compared to her long fingers, similar to spiders' legs. The nails weren't painted, and the woman wore no makeup. As Lillian stared, the woman's stern expression deepened into a scowl. Lillian quickly averted her eyes by gazing at a different professor. A young witch with short blonde curls met her eyes and grinned. She twirled her hair in the same fashion Lillian's mother did when she was nervous. Lillian blinked a few times when she saw the professor's violet eyes. The witch giggled softly, and suddenly the eyes were blue. "What the hell?" Lillian thought.

"That's the potion's master," whispered an older Hufflepuff from across the table, nudging Lillian's arm. "She's the Hufflepuff head of house, now that Sprout retired. Mr. Longbottom's her replacement and the Gryffindor head."

"But how did she do the— whatever she did?" Lillian asked, trying to keep from gaping.

"Oh, she's a metamorphagus. Pretty cool, huh? She said that's why she's rubbish at making Polyjuice Potion, though I doubt it since she can make Felix Felicis perfectly, and that's one of the hardest potions out there. Anyway, she's really nice. It's kind of weird though, having the potion's master be the head of something other than Slytherin."

"Who's the Slytherin head?"

"Oh, that's the Transfiguration teacher, Professor Bulstrode." Lillian looked at the table to find a tall witch wearing emerald robes. Her puggish face had deep set eyes, spaced too close to her small nose. Her head looked like a giant square attached to a slim yet curvy body. Lillian admitted that Millicent could have been attractive, from the neck down, but the thin curls on such a large face made her look like a pig in a wig. The front of her hair looked plastered to her skull, while the bulk was pulled into an intricate knot at the base of her neck. Rich in color, the hair would have been beautiful, on someone with a thinner face. Lillian glanced down at her still empty plate, only to be tapped by the older Hufflepuff.

"Flitwick's still here, though I'm sure that's because he's part goblin. I swear he's at least two hundred years old. He was here teaching charms before Dumbledore came to Hogwarts."

"Is he really short, then?" Lillian asked. Oliver told her what goblins looked like from a description in her History of Magic textbook, and she could remember the size of the goblins from Gringotts.

"Yep, right over there," the student pointed, and Lillian saw a very small wizard grinning at the newest Ravenclaw, someone with the last name Attari. Hair sprouted from his head in white puffs that pushed out from his hat and frizzed by his ears. His blue, starry wizard's hat slipped over his eyes, and he raised a miniscule hand to put the hat back in its proper place. Lillian noticed his piece of the bench lifted higher than the rest to keep him looking a little taller. His feet, however, barely dangled off the bench while Harry's feet completely touched the ground. Hagrid looked like he was in a gargoyle's squat with how bent his knees appeared from under the table.

"Things have changed a lot since Mr. Potter was here then? We were talking on the train."

"You know Mr. Potter?"

"Well," Lillian blushed at the attention, "just a little."

Lillian glanced back up at the staff table to find Mr. Potter. His floo eyes glinted in the reflection of the reflection of the candles off his table. He winked as he caught Lillian's eye, and Lillian's face looked like a seizure as she tried to wink back. She flushed; winking would never be her specialty. She could see Mr. Potter chuckle from his place at the high table, and the two began an intricate conversation of pantomimes that spurred the laughter of more than a few students in the Great Hall. Professor McGonagall shot Harry a dark look, and he stopped immediately, a sheepish look on his face. Lillian covered her mouth to hide a few giggles, and professor McGonagall returned to sorting Boot, Terence, the namesake of his father. He was named Gryffindor, as were the three students before him. A couple Ravenclaws came next, and Lillian finally saw the first Slytherin at Carrow, Aphrodite. She could see Harry flinch. Mr. Longbottom's face contorted to an inhuman shape before he smoothed his rage, revulsion, and fear. He tried for a contemptuous smirk, similar to the late Professor Snape's infamous stare, but he looked more uncomfortable than intimidating. His knuckles were still white, framed by beet red fingertips and wrists. Alyssa hopped off the stool with a dejected look in her eye. She shot an apologetic glance back at the staff table before running to the Slytherin table, head down and eyes blinking back tears. Neville's hands loosened on the table, and he smiled softly.

"Lestrange, Beatrice," rang McGonagall's voice. Lillian could tell the woman worked to keep disgust out of her tone, but McGonagall still spat the "strange" in the poor girl's name. Someone pushed her from the crowd, and Beatrice started her scuttling, jerky movements up to the stool. A blonde boy from the Slytherin table grinned and gave the girl two thumbs up, but she ignored him. Her curls galloped around her face as she moved, matted though they were. Her hazel eyes sparked with fear, then calmed with an effort to control herself, then sparked again with the next step. It took much longer for her to reach the stool than the other students, and the hat took his time sorting her.

"Beatrice, it's a pleasure," the Hat said.

"B-but my mum…" she began.

"You're not like your mum, nor are you like your father. That blank stare of his always creeped me out," said the hat in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"Yes, well he did that to people a lot," she said ruefully.

"The blank stare or the creeping people out?"

"Both," she chuckled.

"There's the smile I've been looking for! Well, the smile I would be looking for if I had eyes, and could actually see the smile on your face from my place on your head, but that's enough for introductory jokes. Let's take a look at that mind, shall we?" said the Hat as he searched through memories. He made sure to keep her conscious of the whole affair; some distrustful students fared badly if he rooted through their minds in secret.

"Hello, what's this?" he said and dove towards a memory.

Beatrice braced herself in anticipation. She didn't want to see this memory again, though she knew someone would find it sooner or later. She learned very early that her mind wasn't a safe place. The Hat, thankfully, didn't show her this memory as he watched it. Instead, Beatrice heard a low whistle as the memory supposedly ended. "I'm so sorry," said the Hat. "I needed to watch that, you see. Memories are often what shape our personalities, and that one seemed important. That doesn't mean it should have happened to you."

Even the conversation with the Hat brought the memory to the edge of her consciousness. It beat like a wave at the forefront of her mind, attacking and receding as she tried to push it back into the past. The tide rose and came in, and Beatrice was soon lost in the sea of her mind. Shuddering as she lost the last bit of darkness that indicated her conversation with the Hat, Beatrice remembered the accidental magic that revealed her identity as a witch.

_A crystal vase adorned with the Lestrange family crest burst into a million shards. Usually Beatrice cleaned the broken glasses with her hands or tried to repair them with her will. This time, her uncle watched her break a glass; she couldn't fix the mess before he noticed. "Oh, you're a witch, are you?" he thundered and grabbed her by the hair. "Well that's a good thing. Think of what I would have done to you if you were eleven and didn't get your letter!" _

_The towering man led her from the kitchen and into the hallway, all by a fistful of matted curls in his left hand. Beatrice knew better than to drag her feet; her scalp would only burn with the added pressure of his strength. His face sobered from its manic state as he laid a firm hand on her wrist. "Why did you break the vase?"_

_Beatrice cowered in his large shadow and strained her wrist in a frightened torsion. "I-I didn't mean to, Uncle." Her weak voice squeaked with years of frightened deference._

"_Oh, but your magic did. Were you unsatisfied with us as your guardians?" he taunted and grinned to show tens of yellowed teeth, magically sharpened to deadly points. His bite contained enough poison to wound a giant and kill a witch, let alone a child. One nip could send her into a coma._

"_Of course not, Uncle."_

"_So, what then?" the smile widened until it nearly broke free of his face. Ripples of cheek skin pushed past his cheekbones in a grotesque contortion, no doubt aided by his foul magic. "Did you just feel like breaking one of our valuable possessions?" he shouted._

"_Th-that wasn't it a-at all, Uncle. It just h-happened. I swear!" Beatrice's voice rose to a frightened squeal._

"_Well, we'll make sure that sort of thing won't just _happen _again. After all, we don't want that magic reaching out to hurt others, now do we?" He raised his wand, "Crucio!" Beatrice clenched her fists and eyes, sinking to the ground. She didn't dare scream; he would get bored if she kept quiet. Pain licked like flames through every fiber of her being, and silent tears ran through the clenched eyes and down her face. The salty water didn't help to soothe the flames. Instead, the tears left flaming paths down her face. A week before, her uncle cursed her tears to burn the skin it touched. Crying was for the weak, he'd said. She would never want to cry again after that curse, he'd said. Beatrice wished the tears would stop flowing. She wished that her ribs didn't feel like they would break if the curse held for another second. She wished she hadn't let a small gasp escape her lips just as her uncle released the curse to leave. The wife of her aunt might have saved her. With the two of them loving each other in some twisted way Beatrice couldn't fathom, she could hide from the house until they were too distracted to hurt her. With that gasp, the man spun around, his eyes raking over her pathetic form._

"_Caesurea!" he barked. "The _girl _broke our vase today. I think the book might be a suitable punishment."_

_Beatrice shuddered as her aunt approached. The wrapped her arms around her face and curled into the tightest ball she could manage. "P-please d-do-don—" she sobbed as her aunt raised a wand. "Carbofors!"_

_Beatrice shrieked, a blood-curdling cry, as her feet transformed into burning coals. Her ankle stubs stank like burning flesh, and she couldn't feel anything below the knee. "Now," the aunt commanded, "walk."_

_Beatrice shakily rose and nearly passed out from the pain. Caesura handed her a book, which she placed on her head. She pulled her legs around in a marionette's dance, moving with her hips instead of her legs. She pulled each leg, straight-kneed, in front of the other while her uncle stood and grinned. She thanked whatever God she could that the book didn't fall, or she would have to start again. As she reached the other side, Beatrice handed the book to her uncle and promptly collapsed. Her unconscious head lolled on the carpet, and she couldn't feel her aunt transfigure her feet back to human form. _

The familiar blackness returned, and Beatrice embraced it. "Sorting Hat?" She hoped she hadn't scared the Hat away, though she didn't see how scaring a Hat off her head was possible.

The Hat sighed. "I didn't want you to see that memory again if I could help it." His voice sounded more gravelly than it had before, cracking not only with age but with grief.

Beatrice nodded; she was sure the hall could see her head bobbing like an idiot. Uncle would have cursed her for that. She looked down at her shoes, or at least thought she did and wondered why the Hat still wanted to talk with her. He usually Sorted children within minutes. Beatrice could tell she'd been sitting with the hat for at least ten, and the conversation didn't look like it would end in the near future.

"I don't want to put you in Slytherin," the Hat mused.

Beatrice couldn't help but feel the flutter of hope in her chest. Her uncle's voice, bearing down upon her, quashed it. She vainly wished he would stop at sending a Howler if she managed to be sent to Hufflepuff. Ravenclaw would probably receive the best response, though even that would involve some punishment, probably something involving the books. She didn't want to know what would happen if she were sorted into Gryffindor. "B-but he-he'll—"

"I know. I can put you there if you need me to. Though I value my Sorting decisions as extremely important," the Hat puffed out his brim a little, and couple cracks faded from his voice. "I can let you choose this time, for your safety."

"W-where would you have p-put me otherwise?"

"Gryffindor. Not many kids could survive that "childhood." You'd do decently in Slytherin, and better in Hufflepuff, but the choice is clear where you belong. I'm hesitant about doing this though. Even Harry Potter was somewhat even on both sides when I let him choose."

Beatrice tried to move off the subject, "Harry Potter got to choose his house?"

"Yes, he was very evenly matched with both Slytherin and Gryffindor characteristics. I was leaning towards Slytherin, but he persuaded me out of it. After all, I'm only reading your minds. If you really don't want to go somewhere, I won't force you." The hat's voice changed to what Beatrice could only describe as an audible devilish grin, "Unless I hate you of course," the Hat laughed. "Stop changing the subject though. You're only in the L's! Harry Potter at least had a very small student population when he went to Hogwarts. Result of the war and all. There were only about 40 kids in his year. Your year? There are 140 of you. That's how it was before Voldemort came along, anyway." Beatrice flinched as the Hat said the name.

"Oh the population decreased by that much?"

"Stop deflecting.

Beatrice tried to compare all the sides of her decision. She didn't want to go to Slytherin now that she knew it was third on the Sorting Hat's list for her. She might consider Hufflepuff, but that would get her parents nearly as angry as they would be from a Gryffindor Sorting. If she would deviate from Slytherin, it would be to Gryffindor. "W-well, I can stay here all year, can't I?" Beatrice asked.

"Yes, and I'll talk to the Headmaster to see if you can be moved to another home in the summer."

Beatrice's heart leapt in her chest. "You'd do that f-for me?"

"You'd be surprised how much I do for students who need help," the Hat said. "Well, if you're sure—better be GRYFFINDOR!"

Beatrice bounced her way off the stool and over to the Gryffindor table. A few hands clapped hesitantly, but the applause fizzled within moments. She grimaced as she saw students shift closer to one another to leave enough room for Hagrid, let alone her. A small Hufflepuff, Beatrice thought she recognized the girl from her boat over the lake, caught her eye. She didn't look disgusted. Instead, the girl stared at Beatrice's hazel eyes with her own ice blue ones and smiled.

Lillian stared at the painfully thin Lestrange girl. "Is that how I look?" Lillian wondered as she looked down and saw the ribs poking out of her own school uniform. The girl stared blankly back at her, her mouth pursed to look smaller, less threatening. As she turned back to smile down at her plate, Beatrice twirled a finger through her mat of curls, just a little darker than Lillian's own. Her robes had morphed slightly since she sat at the Gryffindor table. Trim transformed from silver to burgundy. A patch appeared on her chest bearing the Gryffindor crest. Startled, Lillian looked down at her own robes; they had acquired the Hufflepuff badger and daffodil-colored trim. She smiled; yellow was much happier a color than red anyway.

Whispers trailed around the hall as Professor McGonagall sorted the last child, a Slytherin girl named Genevieve Zambini. The Sorting Hat touched the girl's head for less than a second before announcing his decision. She shot a contemptuous look at Beatrice, an adoring one at Scorpius Malfoy at the Slytherin Table, and glided to join him. "Settle yourselves, please," Professor McGonagall demanded, seeming to look into the eyes of every student in the room. "Now, just a few start-of-term announcements. You may not enter the Forbidden Forest. I don't understand how the name "Forbidden" seems to escape some of you, but you infallibly enter every year." Professor McGonagall looked back at Harry Potter, undoubtedly remembering the professor's many encounters with the Forbidden Forest after curfew. "Let's see if this year we can make it through ten months without a single infraction. In addition, please see the list of contrabanned items posted at the Entrance Hall and in each of your Common Rooms. The list is too long for me to name everything, so I encourage you to check the lists after the feast. I wouldn't want to see anyone punished because of a misunderstanding." McGonagall shot a warning glare at a spikey haired boy in Gryffindor. Lillian realized that he looked exactly like Harry without the green eyes. At the high table, Harry shook his head sheepishly. "As another reminder," McGonagall resumed, "Hogsmeade trips are only allowed for students third year and above. Teachers will check permission slips, so be sure to have them signed. Quidditch tryouts will be announced by captains. As an academic reminder, which I'm sure all of you will take immediately to heart," another glance at the Potter-looking boy, "your studies at Hogwarts affect your career choices for life. People do not return to school if they fare badly the first time, as they do in the Muggle world. As much as many of you loathe to admit it, your exam scores constitute the bulk of your placement in wizarding society. Do not get behind before you have the chance to succeed. I don't want to see first years cramming for tests until three in the morning when they've had weeks to prepare. Students, you know who you are. That is all." McGonagall sat.

A moment later, food of more volume and variety than Lillian had seen appeared on golden buffet plates in the center of tables. Marinated chicken wings lay in a pyramid. A mountain of mashed potatoes trickled with gravy that boiled up from the center like a volcano. Lillian bent over it to see where the gravy river began, but it continued to spew from the mountain's base. A massive cornucopia sat in the middle of the table with an outpouring of food from its mouth. Lillian watched as an older student stuck her hand in front of the cornucopia and said, "shepherd's pie." A second later, a shepherd's pie appeared at the cornucopia's mouth, which she grabbed for her plate.

Lillian eagerly thrust her hand in front of the cornucopia. Brown and cracked with age, the piece looked as old as Hogwarts itself. Lillian absently wondered if Helga Hufflepuff had enchanted these, as she thought of what she wanted to eat. "Roast chicken and French fries, please," Lillian stated confidently. A second later, an entire roasted chicken with French fries appeared on her plate. The fries were soft and slightly crinkled looking, just how she ate them at home. Her plate looked exactly like the image of the meal she held in her mind. The cornucopia even thought to include barbeque sauce. "Why doesn't everyone use this?" Lillian asked a girl next to her.

"The cornucopia is really finicky. If it doesn't approve of what you ask for, you get Brussels sprouts. Not that I don't like Brussels sprouts," said the girl, pointing to a small pile on her plate, "But a massive bowl of them is too much for me. It also only lets you get one thing per year. The good news is that we only bring it out three times a year anyway," she said quickly as Lillian's face fell. "Now, Halloween, and the last feast of the term. Besides, you've got seven years with the thing. And you never know, sometimes it makes exceptions for first years who use their chances too soon." The girl returned to eating her roast and potatoes.

When the pace of eating students finally slowed to a stop, the food vanished; Lillian gaped as the scraps on her plate suddenly disappeared, just as they disappeared from every plate in the hall. A few seventh years chuckled at the new students who stared around them wondering where the food had gone. In another minute, no one cared; the dessert had arrived. A mountain of ice cream rose from the cornucopia. Treacle tart and fudge piled high on plates, ready to be used as bricks for a delicious dessert castle. Plates of brownies dotted the table every few plates, and candy corn covered the tables. Lillian nibbled on the end of a corn as she scooped vanilla ice cream into a bowl. As she grabbed her ice cream, she whispered to the cornucopia, "I'm pretty sure you don't do dessert, since you're full of ice cream and all, but would you mind giving me a vanilla cupcake with my favorite icing? I never get them at home." Lillian closed her eyes and envisioned the cupcake as solidly as she could in her mind. The frosting formed a mountain atop a small vanilla cupcake. When Lillian looked back, the cupcake sat in her hand, three times its usual size. "Thank you!" she whispered to the cornucopia and kissed the side. Terry glanced at her oddly for kissing a wicker artifact, but Lillian thought the cornucopia deserved a little appreciation. Though she couldn't hear it, the cornucopia hummed in response, a low thrumming sound that let it create foods with greater speed and accuracy. Something inside the piece, a little heart of some sort, promised that Lillian could eat whatever she desired, no matter the time of year, especially if it was Brussels sprouts.

* * *

The porthole to her common room looked more than a little ridiculous. The Gryffindor portal opened only with a password, as did Slytherin's. The Ravenclaw portal opened with a riddle, but the Hufflepuff portal only opened if someone bearing the Hufflepuff crest were present. Instead, the Hufflepuff portal functioned on loyalty. A young girl carrying a basket of fruit inspected students for a sign of the Hufflepuff crest. Her black hair, tied in braids, blew in the portrait's breeze as she picked a pear from a tree. As the girl smiled, her dark skin brought out the stark white in her teeth and the bright yellow turban on her head.

A prefect with long, auburn hair looked over the first year students and pulled out a small device. The prefect took a bracing breath, ready to launch into a mandatory speech. "Since you won't be expected to wear your uniforms all the time, this is for your hand. The charm lasts for exactly 8 years, one year just in case of any setbacks," she said the last word with disdain, "Show your hand to the portal and you'll be in. The charm will not wear off before that time, no matter what substance the crest touches. If the original site is destroyed by means of attack, either by heavy scarring or amputation, the crest will move to another part of the body. These devices are destroyed after tonight, and new ones will be made for next year. That means you can't give the sign to anyone else, no matter how hard you try. Should you want to bring a friend over, just make sure you're there at the entrance. If someone impersonates you in any way, the crest does not carry over. Any questions? Okay then." The first year students filed past the prefect, received what Lillian thought looked like a shoddy stamp, and into the common room.

Lillian inspected the homey room inside the portal. The massive fireplace in the center connected to the kitchens, and House Elves set a table of pastries a corner. Students lounged in chairs or on the yellow-carpeted floor. Pillows stitched with badgers adorned every chair, and Lillian swore the room smelled like a mixture of pumpkin pasties and a forest floor. Everything looked incredibly yellow. The walls were yellow, the black couches had yellow throw blankets and yellow pillows. Yellow flames flickered in the fireplace. Yellow tablecloths covered the study tables. Lillian blinked a few times, trying to acclimate herself with the color. The yellows weren't bright, but their combined effect was blinding. Lillian glanced to a set of wooden steps on the left, the stairs that led to the girls' dormitory. Her feet plodded up the steps and landed on a plush, yellow carpet. The door labeled, "First Years," in curled handwriting stood open. Eighteen beds stood against the walls. There were no curtains for privacy, though Lillian noticed that she had her own dresser. She heard running water from a tap in the loo, and the scent of lemons wafted through the bedroom.

She grabbed a badger-shaped pillow from her bed and embraced it. Her parents would be wondering what house she managed to enter. Her brother would insist on a blow-by-blow of her conversation with the Sorting Hat. At this point, Oliver knew more magical theory than she did. She imagined his pale face, scrunched and bent over a massive book. A pair of scuffed glasses would slide over his nose and onto the page. He'd pick them up and return them to their rightful place. She would jump on the chair, knocking the book out of his hands. They would argue, but Lillian wouldn't feel tears streaking down her face as they did now. The image dissolved from her mind in a swirling mist, and she heard Oliver's soft voice in her head: "Don't forget about me!" Lillian grappled with the memory just behind her eyes. The mist ducked under her mind's snatching motions. As the mist disappeared into the corners of her mind, a short sob escaped Lillian's lips. The sound crashed through the room and turned several heads. One girl with silky red hair snorted as she unpacked her bag.

"I have to be calm," Lillian reassured herself as she returned the pillow. "I have classes tomorrow. Oliver would have loved to see th— no. I can't think about Oliver. I'll have to learn to change matchsticks into needles. Mom tried to teach me how to use a needle once; I'm hopeless at—" Lillian sighed. "Everything." As she fell asleep, the sobs that shook her body quieted.

_As clouds tiptoed their movements in the sky, Lillian ran through the field of flowers below. Oliver ran slightly ahead of her and stopped to pluck a dandelion by his feet. "Look, Lilli!" he yelled. Oliver in the dream looked about five years old, and his hair hung lank over his ears and eyebrows. "You can blow it out, right? You're bigger."_

_Lillian made a show of grabbing the dandelion and puffing out her cheeks. A soft breeze rolled across the meadow, stealing the dandelion's seeds and scattering them over the field. Lillian pretended to blow out the plant, and Oliver clapped his hands in glee . As each clap passed, his hands slowed to an almost imperceptible rate. Lillian found herself looking at a stationary world. The grass bent slightly in the paused breeze. Each dandelion mote hung in midair, a few just about to touch the ground. The clouds stopped their intricate dance above, and Lillian gazed upwards to see two ethereal wizards dueling in a world of white. Both wands held out in front, they froze in the middle of an intricate dance, a flurry of clouds and occasional sunlight. _

_The clouds moved first. One of the wizards' wands pointed out of the sky in a protruding mass of white. Lillian watched as it swirled through the sky. After an arc around the field, the wizard jabbed his wand at Lillian's forehead. Oliver screamed, pulling Lillian's hand in an attempt to flee, but Lillian stood transfixed by the clouds while the world around her burned. _

_The fire started at the edges of the field. Black flames licked across a perimeter of trees and spread like a weed across the grass. Encompassing everything in its path, the inferno snatched the ground, leaving a crumbling few pieces of soil to fall in the void. The circle sprinted toward Lillian and Oliver, him screaming that they needed to run, and Lillian too paralyzed with fear to move. The grass withered under their feet, turning black from the fire's black smog. _

_As the hole drew closer to the pair, Oliver's left foot lost its footing. Lillian's primal shriek bounced off the edges of the void when she saw his leg follow that foot. She grasped his arm and tugged, pulling him on top of her. "Oliver, it's okay. We'll be fine."_

"_No, Lillian, I can't be here." His eyes emptied of the slight blue tinge that kept them from being pure gray. They lost the spark they held when he played with his sister or learned something new. They lost the expression they held when he went about his days. He looked like a very convincing automaton, and Lillian could only stare at this half-life of her brother. _

"_What are you talking about? You're going to get killed!" Lillian shrieked over the roar of the flames._

"_I don't belong here in the flames." The robotic Oliver gazed down the void, "I belong down there." Lillian sniffed; he, _it, _didn't smell like her brother any longer. She couldn't detect the hint of ink from books off his skin, or even the smell of her mother's candles that perfumed her house. The voice sounded flat, not metallic like a conventional robot, but certainly not humanoid. She couldn't hear the slight catches before her brother's words, the nearly imperceptible raspiness that accompanied his tone. Whatever this thing was, it wasn't her brother. _

_Still, she screamed as the thing that looked like Oliver threw himself down the void. For a second, his fingers grasped hers as he hung over the chasm. She saw a brief spark in his eyes and tugged. Oliver's tongue ran over his teeth like it did when he was frightened. His breath came in short gasps, and died out completely. The light vanished, and the dead hand slipped through hers as he fell into the void._

Lillian woke to her mix of screams and sobs.


End file.
